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Passage Anticipated in the Forthcoming Chapter

It was now my turn to ask the old French officer “What was the matter?” for a cry of “Haussez les mains, Monsieur l’Abbé!” re-echoed from a dozen different parts of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as my apostrophe to the monk had been to him.

He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upper loges, who, he supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes in order to see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were insisting upon his holding up both his hands during the representation. — And can it be supposed, said I, that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes’ pockets? The old French officer smiled, and whispering in my ear, opened a door of knowledge which I had no idea of.

Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment — is it possible, that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean, and so unlike themselves, — Quelle grossièrté! added I.

The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given in it by Molière: but like other remains of Gothic manners, was declining. "Every nation, continued he, "have their refinements and grossièrtés, in which they take the lead, and lose it of one another by turns — that he had been in most countries, but never in one where he found not some delicacies, which others seemed to want. Le pour et le contre se trouvent en chaque nation; there is a balance," said he, "of good and bad everywhere; and nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipate one half of the world from the prepossession which it holds against the other — that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the savoir vivre, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration," concluded he, making me a bow, "taught us mutual love."

The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of his character: — I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the object; — ’twas my own way of thinking — the difference was, I could not have expressed it half so well. ["The Rose. Paris," pp. 109-110]

Commentary: The Abbé and Grisettes in one of the upper loges at the Opéra Comique

Both editions feature larger illustrations of the boxes at the Opéra Comique, but the 1841 edition depicts Yorick and the philosophical old French captain rather than the Catholic priest in the upper loge with the beautiful young Parisiennes. Yorick's shock at what the old military officer whispers to him suggests the middle-aged Englishman's naïveté. However, his own questionable behaviour with a married grisette in "The Pulse" might suggest that his being offended by the possible sexual misconduct of Abbé makes him a bit of a hypocrite. In Johannot's treatment, the hands of the Abbé are nowhere near the three elegantly dressed young women, although his gaze is directed at least partly at the forward two as they look out from the balcony. In the sketched-in background of balconies and massive chandelier, Johannot shows a number of faces apparently regarding the Abbé.

Bibliography

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols, from original designs by Jacque and Fussell. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841.

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. With 100 illustrations by Tony Johannot. London: Willoughby, 1857.

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Last modified 24 September 2018